B’nai B’rith International extends its condolences to the victims, families and entire community in the Kansas City area terrorized by a deadly shooting at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and the Village Shalom assisted living center. Three people were killed in the attacks. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center and law enforcement officials, the 73-year-old suspect, Frazier Glenn Miller, is a long-time Ku Klux Klan leader. The group says Miller founded the Carolina Knights and the White Patriot Party. Media reports say Miller was shouting “Heil Hitler” and neo-Nazi slogans as police arrested him. A local rabbi said before Miller opened fire, he asked people if they were Jewish. Miller is also known as Frazier Glenn Cross. Unfortunately, this is not the first time there has been a shooting at a Jewish Community Center. Given the locations of the shootings, the attacker may have been targeting Jews. We hope the investigation is both thorough and expeditious.

B’nai B’rith International extends its condolences to the victims, families and entire Jewish community in the Kansas City area after a deadly shooting at the JCC of Greater Kansas City and the Village Shalom assisted living center. Unfortunately, this is not the first time there has been a shooting at a Jewish Community Center. Comments attributed to the shooter after police had him in custody demonstrate a blind hatred toward Jews. We hope the investigation is both thorough and expeditious. We will continue to monitor the situation as details about the circumstances of the shootings become known.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:B’nai B’rith International is disappointed to see that the 2015 budget proposal announced by Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would once again slash spending on domestic discretionary programs—well below the currently suspended sequestration amounts. The plan also proposes another voucher privatization program for Medicare and cuts to Medicaid. Ryan’s budget projects $5 trillion in federal spending cuts, dealing real damage to Medicare and other programs for elderly and vulnerable low-income populations who will end up bearing the brunt of the cuts. Overall, Ryan’s budget seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). By doing so, the budget would shift additional costs to older adults by eliminating free preventive services and drug savings created by the law for Medicare beneficiaries. This would leave many older adults with thousands of dollars in costs to absorb without the resources to pay for them. Ryan's proposal would also create "fast track" procedures for reviewing changes to Social Security. It has long been B'nai B'rith's position that any changes to Social Security must be thoughtfully designed and carefully constructed with extreme transparency, none of which these fast track provisions offer. Further, as always we call on those who hope to "strengthen" Social Security, it must be understood that this requires maintaining commitments, expanding benefits and recognizing the increased role the program now plays in the lives of retirees who lack access to savings, pensions and other vehicles. Social Security is this country's most stable and reliable program to maintain retirement security and guard all of our working families against the unexpected. While no one expects either this budget, the President's or the bulk of their proposals to become law, B’nai B’rith International continues to engage with members of the House, Senate and administration over the important issues raised by these proposals as we work toward good public policy.

Unilateral Campaign Dampens Prospects for PeaceB’nai B’rith International is outraged over Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ application to join 15 United Nations conventions and treaties, a move that demonstrates a lack of commitment to bilateral peace talks and could effectively end direct negotiations with Israel. “The Palestinians are showing a continued, blatant disregard for the peace process by seeking to bypass direct negotiations with Israel,” B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs said. “This is merely a continuation of the Palestinians’ strategy of leveraging support from countries that have blindly embraced their positions at the United Nations.” With the window for peace talks set to close on April 29 and the United States ardently trying to secure an extension until 2015, Abbas surprised both the United States and Israel with an irresponsible maneuver that seeks to further internationalize the conflict. B’nai B’rith has continually maintained that peace can only come from direct negotiations between the two parties. “Efforts such as this only further inflict damage on the peace process and raise questions about the sincerity of Palestinian intentions,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said. “Despite all of the efforts of the United States and Israel to move the peace process forward, the Palestinians have refused to make any meaningful concessions during the last eight months and now they seek to completely marginalize Israel from the process. This move is antithetical to the goal of finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict.”

B’nai B’rith International sent a letter to Czech Republic Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka expressing deep concern, and requesting an apology, for disturbing comments by Justice Minister Helena Valkova about the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia. In the letter from B’nai B’rith President Allan J. Jacobs and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin, they write: “Her claim that, 'Not that much happened' during the Nazi occupation of the country shocked and saddened us, as it clearly minimized the tragic loss of tens of thousands of Czech Jews.” Click here to read the full letter.

Also Concerned with Expected Rapporteur SelectionB’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International condemns the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the five anti-Israel resolutions passed on March 28 as the council closed its 25th session. The council continues to discredit itself with these latest resolutions, as no other country—including unsurpassed human rights abusers Iran, North Korea and Syria—was subjected to multiple condemnatory motions or ‎to a near-total lack of foreign support. Of the 42 resolutions the council passed dealing with a broad spectrum of human rights issues, 10 dealt with reprimanding specific countries and five of those were aimed at Israel. The United States showed principled leadership as the only country to vote against the anti-Israel resolutions, while European members of the council voted in favor of all but one such motion. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, the Czech Republic, Romania, Austria, Estonia and Ireland all voted for the anti-Israel resolutions. These countries did so despite the appropriate abstention by most of them from anti-Israel criticism falling under “Item 7,” the only standing component of the council agenda dedicated to scrutinizing a single country, Israel. A week prior to the votes, B’nai B’rith representative to the U.N. in Geneva Klaus Netter spoke before the UNHRC to address the council’s continued obsession with Israel and to encourage Israel’s fellow Western European and Others Group (WEOG) members to refuse engagement with the discriminatory “Item 7.” “Allow me to use this occasion … to urge all countries represented here, but in particular those of the WEOG, to ignore Item 7, as the latter already did during the last session. In this manner, WEOG helped to highlight the illegitimacy of Item 7, which stands out as the most blatant example of this council’s selectivity,” Netter said. The UNHRC’s one-sided decisions and willful ignorance were further exacerbated with the passage of a Syria-sponsored resolution condemning Israeli presence on the Golan Heights and treatment of the Syrian population. Effectively, the council ignored the fact that Israel has treated wounded Syrians and delivered the babies of others caught in the bloody Syrian civil war that has left more than 150,000 dead. Another point of contention that B’nai B’rith continues to monitor is the appointment of a new U.N. special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, a position previously held by Richard Falk. The selection of Falk’s replacement was deferred at the end of the council’s just-concluded session and B’nai B’rith remains acutely concerned with a number of candidates being considered, including Goldstone Report coauthor Christine Chinkin. In his statement to the council, Netter addressed this subject, saying that while “the post in question is inherently discriminatory, focused on Israeli actions alone, we hope that every effort will be made not to repeat the mistake made in the selection of the last special rapporteur, whose notorious and scandalous bias was an impediment to the pursuit of peace itself.”